Le Vin D'Alon 2017 Domaine Grosbot-Barbara
Le Vin d'Alon is a white wine from the Loire Valley composed of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Tressallier, a local variety also known as Sacy.
The grapes used to make this natural sulphite-free wine are grown on 1.6 hectares of clay-calcareous soil in the municipality of Bransat.
The Vin d'Alon is very aromatic on the nose with notes of white flowers and pears. On the palate it has a wonderful round, almost creamy consistency but with a lively acidity that keeps the wine fresh.
Denis Barbara cultivates several plots of land, for a total of 6.5 hectares, in Saint-Pourçain, a Loire Valley appellation that produced historically significant and highly appreciated wines. In fact, in the 13th and 14th centuries, the wines here were considered among the best in France and were appreciated by Popes, royalty and aristocrats of Paris.
Natural wines without sulphites: the philosophy behind winemaking
Natural wine does not only mean without the addition of sulphites, it means working according to ancient winemaking traditions with sulphur and copper in the vineyard, based on the fatigue of manual work, the least interventionist activity possible, letting the cycles of Nature do most of the work until the vinification of the grape juice as it is, without substances some if not their own.
The result of all this production philosophy is natural wine, a non-standardised wine that best expresses its identity, its terroir and its most intrinsic characteristics. Natural wines are much more difficult to produce than the wines to which we are traditionally accustomed, because when there is no help from the use of balancing substances and support for winemaking the wine cannot be a way to put: either it is good or it is bad.
Natural wine was born as a commitment of natural artisan winemakers to raise their product to the standardization of taste and identity of the wine and the vineyard, which now, thanks to the widespread use of chemistry and new technologies, leads to products with always the same flavors, regardless of the production area or type of cultivation used.